Patient in training

Esther this is fantastic, thank you. We now understand why the CDC thinks that Reeves had to go???

In regards to primates, it is indeed sad for these animals, however necessary for advance of research. I am thankful that the studies are coming out and there are lots of people that are working in the XMRV research, clinically, in the lab and eventually politically.

Maybe I'm not getting it, but wouldn't CFS patients, by definition, have had to have been "infected" (if that's what happened), and have developed symptoms, for at least 6 months to even get a diagnosis of CFS?

Are you confusing "infection" with "culturing" the virus for purposes of testing? I don't think the abstract mentioned anything about culturing the blood. (I realize my terminology is probably off. I have trouble following all this.) Just looks to me like you're comparing two different things.

George

Guest

umm, guys what they are trying to say is that a very low proportion of blood samples showed Antibodies, what would equal less than 0.1% of their blood donors. This virus seems to have the ability to sneak by the immune system without creating an antibody response. That they have found. for now. we'll see.

Senior Member

The study of blood donors is somewhat biased. Even though there are no tests for XMRV, the screening process should effectively exclude people with symptoms of CFS or recent major illness and also people deemed generally "high risk" such as risky sexual behavoir, sharing needles, gay men - regardless of their sexual practices, certain travel histories, etc... Apparently some people try to donate anyways and/or lie on the questionaire, and the screening process isn't perfect. Even controlling for the screening process, not everyone donates blood - the donors are probably skewed to certain demographics. Plus, they can't check every unit of blood, they only checked a subset of for ths study. Saying there is a 0.1% hit rate is better than saying it doesn't exist - but it isn't neccesarily representative of the rate of infection in the general population. I suspect the rate of infection is much higher than the percentage of infection that shows up in blood screening studies.

George

Guest

Robin

Guest

umm, guys what they are trying to say is that a very low proportion of blood samples showed Antibodies, what would equal less than 0.1% of their blood donors. This virus seems to have the ability to sneak by the immune system without creating an antibody response. That they have found. for now. we'll see.

Gerwyn

Guest

Maybe I'm not getting it, but wouldn't CFS patients, by definition, have had to have been "infected" (if that's what happened), and have developed symptoms, for at least 6 months to even get a diagnosis of CFS?

Are you confusing "infection" with "culturing" the virus for purposes of testing? I don't think the abstract mentioned anything about culturing the blood. (I realize my terminology is probably off. I have trouble following all this.) Just looks to me like you're comparing two different things.

They used a technique called transfection using PCR products into cells and expected virus which would produce an immune response after 18 hours
This is analagous to infection In how long after an "infection" can you find viable virus at detectable titres.The researchers in the primate study had the sense to wait 144 days after their" transfection"

Gerwyn

Guest

umm, guys what they are trying to say is that a very low proportion of blood samples showed Antibodies, what would equal less than 0.1% of their blood donors. This virus seems to have the ability to sneak by the immune system without creating an antibody response. That they have found. for now. we'll see.

Senior Member

Could someone direct me to where the original text came from that mentions the .1% in blood donors? I don't see that in the abstract. Would love to know what paper or abstract that came from. Thanks. ~Fern